Newsletter

Sluggish KU pulls away from BU

Top-seeded Jayhawks tight early, erupt late for 72-53 win

By the end of the game twins Markieff (left) and Marcus Morris could relax as Kansas' 72-53 victory Friday over Boston University counted down. But the Jayhawks were anything but relaxed during a first-half when the No. 16 seed was within four points of the top-seeded Jayhawks at halftime of their NCAA Tournament game in Tulsa.

Marcus Morris and the Kansas Jayhawks avoided a major stumble Friday night when they blew open a tenuous four-point halftime lead and ran away from 16 seed Boston University in the second half of a 7-253 win in KU's first game of the NCAA Tournament.

TULSA, Okla. — Markieff Morris was supposed to be one of the loose ones, cracking a joke, being a goof, whatever.

It was him, his brother Marcus and Brady Morningstar. They would keep the Jayhawks from tightening up in the NCAA Tournament. Like, people were saying this. This was a thing people were saying. This was a reason this year would not be like last year.

So what was Markieff Morris doing missing easy buckets and getting his stuff thrown into the stands?

“Coach said I was playing too tight,” he said.

That went for the team as a whole, too. In the end, top-seeded Kansas (33-2) beat No. 16-seeded Boston University 72-53. By the time it was over, it had become an unremarkable 1-over-16 blowout. If you could forget about the first 20 minutes, there wasn’t much to say about it.

But can you forget about the first 20 minutes? Should you? And what if those 20 minutes had come in the middle of the game instead of the beginning? Would that change your perception of how KU played?

Years from now, when a No. 16 seed does finally take down a No. 1, nobody will scan the NCAA Tournament history books for close calls from yesteryear and land on this one. In the cold ink of a box score, there was nothing to see here.

Yet there was. There was Kansas — yeah, the school that loses too early — playing in a straightjacket again, getting behind then pulling ahead but not pulling away. The Jayhawks led by four points at halftime, the smallest halftime margin for any No. 1 seed this year.

Surely, the impossible was not happening.

“Oh,” Self said, “it’s going to happen.”

It didn’t ever exactly look like it actually was going to happen on Friday, but it looked like the Terriers (21-14) were going to have a look at it. They outshot Kansas in the first half, were hanging with the Jayhawks on the glass and their best player, John Holland, had scored 15 points on three different KU defenders.

The Jayhawks, meanwhile, missed seven layups in the first half, missed the front end of a 1-and-1 trip to the foul line, wiped out a made free throw with a lane violation and looked not like a team that thought it was unbeatable, but like a team that knew it could be had and was terrified of the thought.

“We were so anxious,” Tyshawn Taylor said.

Several players said they felt there was a lid on the basket, one Markieff Morris finally bashed in three minutes into the second half with KU’s first dunk of the game. The stuff put Kansas up 39-32, the Jayhawks started to relax and the lead started to swell.

KU went up by double digits for the first time on an reverse layup by Brady Morningstar with 13 minutes left, and with 7:35 to play, Morris put the capper on it with one of his signature top-of-the-key 3-pointers, giving Kansas a 15-point lead and assuring an overwhelmingly crimson-and-blue crowd everything would be OK. In that way, it was a quintessential Markieff Morris play. He’s a prolific shooter for a center, but relative to the rest of the team, he doesn’t take a huge number of 3s. He does, however, seem to have a feel for the big one. His was the third in a row for KU.

“I feel like sometimes Kieff takes some questionable shots, so I feel like when he makes it, it’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,’” Taylor said. “But, I mean, he’s been consistent making them.”

The one he made Friday was certainly in question when it left his hand. Self even took note it was significantly deeper than Morris’ standard shot.

“It was the right shot at the right time,” Morris said.

He seems to have a knack for hitting the big sendoff 3-pointer, like a crooner hitting the high note before the curtain call.

“I think he always waits for the right time,” Thomas Robinson said. “He always waits for somebody to hit, like, two, and then he’ll come and hit the gamebreaker.”

He finished with 15 points and eight rebounds. Marcus had 16 and nine, Kansas shot 51 percent, outrebounded Boston U by 15 and won going away.